Most nights of the week, we have a salad with dinner. Last night I had a salad for dinner. I know my metabolism has shriveled, and I know that my body doesn’t need evening fuel to go to bed. Ideally, most of the fuel should be taken in earlier in the day. If anything, too much fuel in the evening disrupts sleep. A bowl heaped with Bill’s homemade Bolognese sauce adorning long strings of spaghetti is a luxurious dinner, yet that ball of carbs in my gut makes me thrash during the night. A dinner salad moves the needle in the other direction, lightening up that evening meal.
Little Leaf Farms has spoiled us throughout the year with locally grown, fresh baby lettuce leaves. According to Paul Sellew, CEO of Little Leaf, 95% of the lettuce in our stores is grown and shipped from California and Arizona—a 3,200-mile trek. Grown hydroponically in 10-acres of green houses, Little Leaf lettuce is picked and immediately shipped in recycled and recyclable plastic cartons that protect the leaves. The crispy leaves lay gently in the carton and are a sharp contrast to their bagged cousins that have been squished into boxes for their cross-country journey. Sellew, a long-time proponent of sustainable agriculture, broke ground on this new way of farming in 2015.
Steadfast on my weekly schedule over the last year has been Pilates on Monday and Wednesday mornings and visiting my fishmonger’s truck on Saturday mornings. That’s the fancy term for Roberto’s Seafood. Or rather, Bob. In good weather months, Bob is at our local farmer’s market. Thankfully, his tenaciousness to sell fish year-round shines like a beacon when from a distance I spot his fish truck parked in the same spot near a park every Saturday morning. The line—that was eight people deep and spaced six feet apart on a Saturday morning with a wind-chill of -25—speaks to the quality of his fish. Seeing these bundled up beings made me think these were my people. I don’t know if I knew any of them; all of our identities were masked through layers, hoods, and masks. My base weekly purchase of fish protein is one pound of scallops and a heavy pound of salmon. I usually add one or two more pounds of mussels, haddock, swordfish, clams, oysters, shrimp, calamari, or tuna.
The scallops and salmon are as easy to prepare as Maid-rites. After a rinse, the salmon gets a sprinkling of Northwoods Seasoning from Penzey’s Spices and bakes uncovered at 375 for 25 minutes. As for scallops, I give them a quick rinse, dry them on paper towels, sprinkle with a little salt and many generous twists of fresh black pepper. In a big flat-bottomed pan over medium-high heat, I put enough extra virgin olive oil in to make a veiled slick on the bottom of the pan. When the oil is hot, I place the scallops peppered side down, twist more pepper onto the tops, cover loosely, and leave them for three minutes. I don’t have a lid for my big skillet, so I cover it with a round pizza pan to stop the fat from covering the stovetop, but I leave a big gap on one side for the steam to escape. At three minutes, I fork-turn them over, again loosely cover, and cook for three more minutes. That’s it—no guessing on more or less time in the pan. I immediately loosen and roll them into a bowl to remove them completely from heat. Rubbery scallops are a result of overcooking, and I think it’s better to eat them lukewarm and tender than to let them sit in a hot pan while the rest of the meal comes together. Adding this protein to a salad makes a hard pivot from side salad to dinner salad.
For dinner last night, the stars aligned: an avocado and a pear were ripe at the same time! While the scallops seared, I chopped this pair for the salad. For a boost in protein, I also chopped up a boiled egg and threw it into the mix. Still foraging for protein, I dug in the freezer until I found a bag marked in Mom’s handwriting, “Walnuts 2019.” Black walnuts. I heated my small dry roasting skillet on the stove and unzipped the bag and sighed at the smell of the frozen, hand-picked treasure. Liam was cooking with us and asked if it smelled good. I held the bag out for him to sniff.
Liam looked at me doubtfully. “Smells like socks.”
Yes, I could understand how their earthy smell could be misconstrued.
“Just wait until they’re roasted,” I suggested.
Liam doubted.
I scoop a couple of handfuls of frozen bits into the pan over high heat then flip them continuously with a flick of my wrist. The heat releases the papery inner skins, the seed coats, and they billow up out of the pan like ash floating from a bonfire. When they start to brown, I dump them onto a clean dish towel and rub them to remove any remaining skin. The black walnuts smell like clean earth now. They smell like Iowa. They deftly pull tears like an onion.
In a large metal bowl, Liam has dumped a box and a half of lettuce and dressed it with our strong, homemade vinaigrette. At this point, we spoon leaves out into a small bowl, for Liam is a simple side-salad kind of guy. The salad is the warm-up to his beef tostados that Bill is making next to me. To the remainder of the leaves, I add the pear, avocado, hard-boiled egg, crumbled blue cheese, and walnuts. I toss it all together and distribute it into bowls for Bill and me. I drop warm scallops on top and finish it off with a few twists of pepper.
I borrow an ending from the essay “Swiss Chard with Cod” that is in my book, Cornfields to Codfish:
“…a smattering of people from the Midwest and Northeast all had a hand in making this dinner.”
Sources:
https://www.littleleaffarms.com/our-story/
https://www.facebook.com/robertosseafood
https://www.penzeys.com/online-catalog/northwoods-seasoning/c-24/p-423/pd-s
https://www.lindamalcolm.com/musings/2019/9/13/black-walnuts
https://www.lindamalcolm.com/musings/2021/1/19/emulsification